Introducing the Whirlpools Builders Program

Build your app on Orca’s Whirlpools and receive a grant of up to $200,000 in ORCA!

Want to build a new project in the Solana ecosystem, but not sure where to start?

Well today’s your lucky day: We’re funding budding new builders in Solana to develop apps on top of Whirlpools, our new concentrated liquidity pools! 🌀

To apply, review our Builders Portal and submit your application by 00:00 UTC on Thursday, June 30th 🐋

What is the Builders Program?

The Builders Program represents Orca’s commitment to cultivating innovation in DeFi. Though we recently open-sourced the Whirlpools smart contract, the design space for concentrated liquidity remains largely unexplored, providing a whale of an opportunity to builders willing to take the plunge! 🐳

Projects submitted to the Builders Program should achieve the following objectives:

1. Enable a wider range of users to provide concentrated liquidity through Whirlpools
2. Improve yields for LPs and rates for swaps through effective capital deployment

Applications for the first wave of the Builders Program will be open from now until June 30th, 2022.

After that, we’ll take about a week to review submissions and chat with candidates before announcing the Wave 1 winners! 🌊

What type of grants will be awarded?

Grants will typically range from 4,000–20,000 ORCA. Larger grants of up to 200,000 ORCA will be considered for teams with a proven track record of shipping DeFi applications with significant adoption. Note that we’ll give priority to teams that are able to build their project full-time!

Aside from grants, promising projects may also enjoy co-promotion on Orca’s marketing channels and assistance with introductions to additional sources of funding.

Note: This initial round of grants will come from the Value-Add category of the ORCA token distribution, not the community treasury.

What types of projects can I build?

We’ve listed a few of our favorite ideas below, but we welcome all applications that make Whirlpools easier to use or more capital-efficient!

Active Liquidity Management: Concentrated liquidity pools offer LPs additional flexibility when deploying capital, but also require a more active management approach. An active liquidity management protocol could either:

• Allow individual managers to manage LP positions for depositors
• Run an automated strategy to help users optimize yields

Read more here for a full spec for an ALM solution.

Perpetuals or options: We’ll soon be launching Community Listings, which will allow anyone in the Solana ecosystem to create their own Whirlpools in a permissionless fashion. This functionality can be used to create perpetuals, options, or other derivative-focused protocols.

Permissionless Lending: Permissionless lending can utilize each Whirlpool’s time-weighted average price (TWAP) to support borrowing and lending for the long-tail of tokens. By using Orca’s pools as the primary oracle, permissionless lending for any asset can be quickly deployed and scaled. Oracle functionality is currently in progress and will be available to builders soon.

PnL Calculator: Upon depositing, Whirlpools provide a unique position NFT to represent your current concentrated liquidity positions. A PnL calculator would provide users an easy way to calculate their profit or loss while incorporating divergence loss [PnL = current value of Token A & Token B + yield from rewards + fees earned) — (original value of Token A & Token B)].

How do I get started building?

Ready to get your fins wet? Take a dive into our Dev Portal and Builders Program pages! Also, check out the smart contract and SDK — both of which are open-source) and audit reports by Neodyme and Kudelski.

Ready to sea-ze the day? Fill out this form by June 30th, 2022. Bonus points will be awarded for clear, concise submissions! 😉

Have questions? Hop into the #whirlpools-builders channel in our Discord — we’ll be happy to help. The Orca team will also be at the upcoming Tokyo, Austin, and London Solana Hacker Houses, so check our portal or the Orca Twitter for event details and come say hello! 🐋

Disclaimer: The content of this communication is not financial advice and should not be relied on by any persons as financial advice. This communication has not been provided in consideration of any recipient’s financial needs. We have not conducted any financial assessment based on the personal circumstances of any recipients. Before using the protocol, carefully review all relevant documentation and consider risks including total loss of funds.